


Nothing More Beyond

by galfridian



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Giant Robots, Mutant Powers, References to Comics Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-14 00:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2171628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galfridian/pseuds/galfridian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six encounters between Mutants and the Agents of SHIELD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing More Beyond

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dridri93](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dridri93/gifts).



> Written for Crossovering 2014.

**JULY 21, 2014**  
"...up and running and back fighting the good fight," Koenig declares when they arrive at the Playground, and soon, Skye discovers he views it as a promise.

Three weeks later, lanyards distributed and injuries tended, he parcels out a mountain of files over breakfast. "Just the tip of the iceberg," he tells him. Koenig likes to speak in cliches. "Civilian reports of possible HYDRA cells. Intel Romanoff left off her Internet leak – yes, Romanoff, Agent May. A few other other leads." 

"Where do we start?" Coulson asks, flipping open the top folder in his pile. 

Koenig pours a cup of coffee, black. "That's your call. New director, new SHIELD."

HYDRA cells, Coulson decides, and no one protests. So a few days later, after sifting through files for the better intel, SHIELD carries out its first post-HYDRA mission. It's a triumph from start to finish, including the three operatives they toss in a small, windowless room with Ward.

Five more successful missions follow, due largely – Skye thinks – to HYDRA believing SHIELD would take longer to lick its wounds.

But of course, that success has a limit, and they hit it a month later. On the Bus, May pushes them to altitude at a velocity and angle that makes Skye's stomach churn. Coulson sways, his grip on the stairwell giving, and as his other hand falls away from his side, they discover how critically he's been injured.

Simmons sets to work there, stemming the blood flow and trying to find the cause of the wound. But Skye had seen the weapons the HYDRA agents had used. Nothing man-made.

They're in northern Pennsylvania, and it doesn't matter how hard May pushes, they're too far from the Playground. So Skye retrieves the Toolbox from Coulson's office, praying Fury has left them with more than one set of coordinates.

He has.

 

 

Skye has kept her distance from upstate New York since leaving St. Agnes. When May tells her the coordinates lead to a property in North Salem, Skye almost laughs. The laughter dies in her throat when May takes the Toolbox from her, suggesting she should wash her hands. It takes ten minutes to wash Coulson's dried blood away.

Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters sits on a sweeping stretch of countryside. The school itself and its inhabitants surprise Skye less than finding herself fifty miles from the orphanage. 

Everyone has seen the footage: The blue-skinned woman with red hair and yellow, cat-like eyes who protected the president; the man who dropped the RFK Stadium on the White House lawn. Before, Mutants were a rumor to most people. After, well...Skye has known of them her whole life.

Xavier, a man in an honest-to-god flying wheelchair, greets them at the bottom of the cargo ramp. With a wry smile, he mentions that ‘an old friend' hinted that Xavier might meet them sooner rather than later. Behind him, a furry, blue-skinned man and a stunning, red-haired woman wait. They're both wearing lab coats. 

When Xavier says, "Drs. McCoy and Grey will examine your Director" before anyone mentions Coulson, Skye decides she can guess what his power is. "Meanwhile," he suggests, "you should rest. Scott will direct you to the kitchens."

At the door, they find a man wearing red-lensed sunglasses, who Skye guesses must be Scott. He mentions leftovers in the refrigerator, but as Skye watches Coulson and his gurney float around a corner, she loses her appetite. 

So she wanders the grounds instead. She tries to picture growing up here, rather than St. Agnes. It's summer, so the school is quiet, but some of the kids must have nowhere else to go. She finds them clustered in little groups, scattered across the property.

She spies a couple, probably closer to her age than the kids she's seen, relaxing by a fountain. The girl walks into the fountain, simply walking through the stonework rather than stepping over it, and splashes water at the guy. He freezes it in mid-air. Skye turns and walks away.

 

 

Later, back on the Bus, Skye sits with Coulson in the lounge. "You seemed...unphased...by them," he observes.

"By Mutants? I've known about them my whole life." But she knows that seeing the blue-skinned woman save the president hasn't erased people's fear, so she adds, "At St. Agnes, we heard rumors about the school. The nuns liked to deny them, but we knew it was true."

Then she tells him that when she was ten, there was a girl at the orphanage who shot sparks from her fingertips. It was an accident, but the girl disappeared between lunch and dinner. She tells him that when she was thirteen, she wanted to be a Mutant, too, because it could explain why her parents hadn't wanted her.

But tonight, she doesn't tell Coulson about being fifteen, peering into a dark corridor of an immense church, looking for a ghost. It's a story for another day.

 

 

**JANUARY 1, 2015.**  
Following the holidays, there's a lull in their HYDRA intel, so Skye picks up a thread connected to Project TAHITI and GH-325. 

The thread leads to whispers of an abandoned city in the South American Andes. A bit of digging reveals a mixed bag of monster sightings the likes of which Fox Mulder could only ever dream.

So Skye and Coulson pack a few bags and charter a private plane. They don't expect to find much, not even the rumored city, so the rest of the team stays behind.

And they're right, mostly. A helicopter ride takes them to a clearing near the location. Their pilot confirms there's an abandoned city, empty for decades now. 

The location is a short climb from the clearing. When they reach the top, they see the remains of the city. A few buildings still stand, but mostly, they find only metal skeletons. Whoever left this place behind wanted its secret buried.

Skye takes a step toward the city, but Coulson's hand on her wrist stills her. "Look." He nods toward one of the few remaining buildings.

A man with gray hair and cold eyes approaches, a metal canister tucked under his arm. He pauses at the sight of them, tightening his grip on the container. They watch in shock as he walks past them, without a word. As he begins his descent, he flicks his wrist, and the ground beneath them begins to shake.

Skye can only watch in horror as the ground opens up and swallows the city. Whatever answers they might have found disappear with it.

 

 

**MAY 3, 2015**  
Skye hates to admit this, but HYDRA must have some clever leadership somewhere. After their initial success last July, finding solid leads has become increasingly difficult. More often that not, SHIELD intervenes when HYDRA's maneuvers become more conspicuous.

Working for a crippled intelligence agency has its drawbacks.

Then, after weeks of scraping by, they find a small HYDRA operation. Like SHIELD a year ago, most of the people working for the little pharmaceutical company have no idea they're a front for an evil organization. Skye feels guilty not alerting them to the truth, but SHIELD needs their computers to stay connected to HYDRA.

It takes less than ten minutes to upload Skye's hack to the appropriate server, then sneak out of the facility. The backdoor doesn't last long, and they don't expect it to, but Skye has enough time to pull a handful of files from their server.

Several of the files seem connected to a single HYDRA operative, a man whose work is so classified that half of his mission reports are heavily redacted. Fortunately, SHIELD's new Director likes a challenge, so they happily pile onto the Bus. 

"That's right," Koenig says, waving to them as the cargo door closes, "they can run, but they can't hide." He's so proud of them, Skye almost has a sense of what it feels like to have an embarrassing parent.

 

 

They pursue the operative for several weeks, tracking him halfway around the world. For some time, they're always a step behind, always arriving moments after he disappears into the wind. Finally, they catch up to him on a small island in the the South Pacific.

As they approach him, he disappears into a thick crop of trees. Fitz gives a snort of derisive laughter. "Where does he think he's going?"

Skye shrugs. "This is HYDRA, Fitz. You never know, maybe they have a secret base here."

Simmons swats at a gargantuan mosquito. "I can't believe I'm crossing my fingers for a secret HYDRA base, but I'll take air conditioning and an insect-free environment any way I can right now."

"Come on, Simmons," Trip says, crushing a mosquito with a clap of his hands. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Gone," Simmons replies. "I only wish – "

That's when the ground gives a deep, resounding shutter. They pause, looking down at their feet. The ground shakes again, then again, and again. "Does that sound like – " Coulson starts.

" – footsteps," May finishes.

The HYDRA operative emerges from the treeline first. His skin is ashen, his eyes alight with terror, and he looks nothing like the calm, collected agent of evil they've glimpsed from afar these past few weeks. He runs past them, as though they're beyond his notice.

Moments later, a robot steps out into the open. _A robot._ Fifteen feet tall, at least. Cool metal in shades of gray and blue. Black eyes. It spots them, raises its arm. Skye hears the unmistakable sound of a weapon powering up.

And then, just as she's sure _a robot_ is about to kill her, something lands on its arm. There's a screeching sound, metal scratching against metal, and the arm lands on the ground a few feet from them. The robot turns its attention to the thing on him, which turns out to be a man with metal claws.

Skye has just enough time to think _Mutant_ before there's a jet hovering overhead. The man with the metal claws jumps from the robot's shoulders just as the jet begins to figure on it.

Minutes later, the robot is a smouldering heap of metal, and the jet has landed beside the Bus.

"Didn't expect to see you here," Coulson says to Xavier as the X-Men emerge.

Xavier smiles. "We were in the neighborhood."

"Huh," Coulson says. "Well, thanks for the – " He gestures vaguely at the remains of the robot.

The man with the metal claws rejoins his team, disappearing onto the jet without a word.

 

 

They don't hear about the Avengers' latest battle in New York until they return to the Playground. Together, they gather around the screens in Koenig's office, watching the footage from a dozen different networks. "Ugh," Skye says. "Robots."

 

 

**AUGUST 8, 2015**  
They're in Los Angeles when the attacks begin: Gas bombs detonated in major cities across America. No explosives, no deaths. Just a gas that expands for miles and miles before dissipating. Hovering above the chaos, a man watches, the same man Coulson and Skye saw in the Andes. 

In the wake of the attacks, people are left changed. Some of the changes are unremarkable, but some are spectacular. People flee the targeted cities in droves, and other countries throughout the country quickly follow suit.

Las Vegas is the third city hit. Although thousands of people have already left, it's somehow the worst of the attacks. Those who experience a transformation change rapidly. Some of their powers are scary and unstable. Fitz and Simmons hypothesize that the formula has changed between the second city – Houston – and Vegas.

"It seems more...targeted now," Simmons notes.

"Targeted how?" May asks, slinging a duffel bag onto a counter. She unzips it, pulling out one of the airtight uniforms, complete with gas masks, that they'll be wearing when the attacks inevitably reach LA.

With a few quick taps, the data from Fitz's tablet appears on a nearby screen. "After our last encounter with the X-Men, Professor Xavier sent us a copy of their database. Names, photos, and abilities of most known Mutants." 

Simmons says, "We put them into our own database, of course, and since the attacks, we've been running facial recognition searches on anyone whose newfound...abilities...were caught on camera."

"Although Vegas has a greater population of Mutants than Chicago, there was a thirty percent decrease in Mutants affected by the latest attack."

"And a corresponding increase in humans affected," Simmons adds.

"So someone is targeting humans," Coulson says.

"Yes," Simmons agrees. "Now, in most of the Mutants, their pre-existing abilities or mutation was simply heightened. Which leads us to believe that whatever this gas is, it's simply...bringing out what was already there. Hiding in their DNA."

Skye glances at Coulson, her hand resting on the scars of her bullet wounds.

 

 

The attacks reach LA early the next morning. The gas rolls into the Bus before they can reach their hazard suits.

Of the team, Skye is the only one affected. On the Bus, the gas is concentrated, thick and clinging to her lungs. She chokes on it, stumbles blindly. But as the world goes black and consciousness slips away, something inside Skye begins to stir.

When she wakes, it’s Xavier’s voice – echoing in her mind – that leads her out of the fog.

 

 

 **NOVEMBER 2, 2015**  
They watch, as transfixed as the rest of the world, as the Avengers and the X-Men fight a band of hostile Mutants just outside Xavier's School. None of the Avengers were affected by the attacks in August, and now, they're joined by two Mutants who Fitz and Simmons can't find in Xavier's database.

And as Skye watches, she sees everything – every misstep an Avenger or Mutant makes, every defect in their powers, every flaw waiting to be exploited. Since August, she sees weaknesses everywhere. Brittle bones and longing hearts and failing minds and crumbling infrastructures. Now, no one can stop her from hacking a server, and she can stop an enemy agent in as little as two steps. 

But it's heavy, this knowledge, and it's no more heavy than when she's too far from the action to help. So she sits with her team and watches, trying to will the right strategy into Xavier's head.

They watch as the battle wears on, and they watch as the Avenger and Mutant, Quicksilver, is crippled by a Mutant called Avalanche and burned alive by one called Pyro. They watch as Quicksilver's sister, called the Scarlet Witch, stands over his body.

And they watch as Scarlet Witch turns to their enemy, a Mutant courting evils beyond his control or understanding, and the man comes apart. Split into his atoms.

"No more Mutants," she declares, and one by one, enemy and ally Mutant alike just _stop_.

Some of the Mutants retain their powers.

Many do not.

 

 

So they travel to North Salem, New York, where they’re welcomed as a balm. Together, SHIELD and the X-Men begin rebuilding the school.

Standing in the courtyard of Xavier's Mansion, the place that bore the brunt of the battle, Skye's sharpened sight sees:

There, the foundation needs stabilizing. Here, the roof will soon collapse. There's a fracture within the X-Men, a fissure growing between those whose powers vanished and those whose powers survived. The world is splitting, too, and there's a day coming when they'll all have to stand together – the Avengers, SHIELD, the X-Men – or they'll lose everything.

Then she turns. Just outside the courtyard, a man waits. Blue skin, long tail, yellows eyes. "Hello," he says, and she remembers –

 

 

 **AUGUST 13, 2004**  
Skye is fifteen, just returning to St. Agnes from her latest foster home. From her latest disappointment. Today, the orphanage is on a 'field trip,' touring a number of upstate New York's oldest and largest churches.

This particular church is haunted, the rumors whisper. A ghost, some say. Others believe it's a demon, waiting to lead God's people into hell.

Maybe it’s boredom that compels Skye to wander from her group. Maybe it's recklessness – she's fifteen, nothing to lose, and just three short years from homelessness. Maybe she’s just curious.

But she slips away, wandering the unlit corridors of the massive church. It's oddly soothing, falling further and further behind her group and into a heavy silence.

Then she finds him, entirely by accident. She catches only a glimpse – blue skin, sharp teeth, scarred or tattooed or both – before he shies away, stepping into the deep shadows of the church.

"Wait," she says, just as he vanishes. _Poof._ Into thin air. And Skye knows: he isn't a ghost or a demon or an angel or any of that. He’s a Mutant. She's heard the word, seen the videos of a different blue-skinned Mutant saving Nixon’s life. Thirty years later, the world is still debating: _Are they good or evil? Should we trust them?_ As though anything at all could be as simple as that.

Maybe Skye should be terrified of him, but she's not.

He reappears, still lurking in the shadows. After a moment, he whispers, “Hello.” He has a German accent, but his English is perfect. "Are you lost?"

And Skye knows he doesn't just mean physically. "Yes," she replies. She takes a slow, careful step forward. Her eyes have adjusted to the dark now, and she can see him flinch, but he doesn't disappear again.

"Do you have faith, little one?" he asks.

She looks around at the church, which suddenly seems too dark and too large. "No," she confesses.

He smiles, just barely. "It is essential to life," he says. Then he leans forward, gesturing for her to do the same, and whispers, "But there are many kinds of faith, little one, and just as many things to have faith in."

Voices and footsteps approach them, calling her name. He gives a wave, then disappears.

 

 

And he's right. It takes ten years, but Skye finds her faith.


End file.
